


Time Best Spent

by ArchiveAE



Category: NCT (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Canon Universe, Crossover, Fluff, Idols, M/M, Massage, Secret Relationship, Showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23106682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchiveAE/pseuds/ArchiveAE
Summary: Jeongguk has grown used to snatching precious minutes with Jaehyun, always behind closed doors.Sometimes he wishes that they could just drive away together into the night and never turn back.
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun
Comments: 17
Kudos: 269





	Time Best Spent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachyun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachyun/gifts).

> Hello everyone <3 I’ve had this little crossover in my mind for a while and this week I knew that I had to get it done. I’ve tagged it mature for sex references, but it’s mostly quite a soft piece. It is not intended to be in any way realistic and I have no intimate knowledge of the workings of music shows or idol management, it is intended merely as an artistic impression. I hope that you like it.

For once in his life, Jeongguk had wished for there to be no encore. It felt wrong in the overlarge studio, with its strange atmosphere after the fans had not been invited in. His throat was sore from what seemed to have been months of promotions, and the thread was coming loose in the back of his collar, making his neck itch during the filming, especially when he started to sweat. It was over-hot in the studio, even though it was almost empty, and Jeongguk felt clammy, unsettled.

Maybe it was because when their win was announced, he felt the camera on him like a shadow tracing his every move. Waiting to catch him out. He was at the end of the line, well away from Jaehyun, but he felt his presence like an electrical charge. It set the hairs on his arms on edge. They weren’t usually so close, not while the cameras were watching. Perhaps in the end it was better that there was no one there in the room to see them – he was sure that the magnetism between them must be palpable in the air.

As the hosts moved down the line, Jeongguk closed his hands into fists. His palms were sweating. If he stepped forward too soon, then he might look too eager. If he only held out his hand, then it might confuse anyone who was watching. As far as the world knew, he and Jaehyun were good friends, after all.

‘Five more minutes,’ murmured Jaehyun when he reached him in the line, and then they hugged. It lasted barely a second, but Jeongguk rested his cheek down at Jaehyun’s shoulder. He breathed in the half-masked scent of his sandalwood aftershave. Jeongguk had bought it for him, at a luxury department store during the band’s last visit to London.

When he pulled away, Jeongguk wanted to turn to grab his hand. The movement was automatic, a base instinct, and he only realised with a surge of panic when it was almost too late. Instead, he swatted out playfully at him, the same kind of way that he interacted with his own members. No one would notice. No one would mind.

The _fucking _encore.

The music started so fast that he barely had the time to right himself. He pushed back his hair from his face, feeling the sweat on his forehead, and tried to find his focus. _One more time. One more time. _He just needed to do this _one more time_.

There was ticker-tape on the stage. Halfway through the choreography, he almost slipped. His mind was on other things and the sneakers they’d been loaned for the performance from some designer somewhere had no grip at all on the bottom. He wished that they could take it a little easier but everyone else seemed to be going especially hard for the final promotion.

Was Jeongguk the only one whose lungs were burning? Whose legs were aching? Whose heart longed to be backstage right now in the embrace of another?

As the song ended and he wrapped his arms around Yoongi and Seokjin, he felt, in all honesty, like they were the ones holding him up.

They turned and bowed to the staff, Jeongguk low as ever, but lifting himself back up was harder. His shoes felt weighed down with lead, and they dragged as he walked quickly off the stage. He was the first to jump down the stairs, two at a time, pulling out his monitors as he went and leaving them loose around his neck. With their absence, his ears felt strange, like they were suddenly picking up on a different frequency. The voices around him blurred into one.

He let them do what they wanted with him. They took his jacket, unwired the monitor at his waist and pulled loose the strap. Someone dabbed away the sweat on his forehead. Their hands were like a strong wind around him, annoying and invasive but familiar enough that he simply let them be as he rocked on the balls of his feet. He jumped when Namjoon clapped a hand down on his shoulder to tell him that he’d done well during the last performance.

‘I want to get changed,’ he said, to no one in particular. That was one of the parts of being an idol that he was so used to, now. Always being surrounded by people, all of whom had their attention on you, and yet none of them were really _speaking _to you. He’d learned to just say things aloud and wait until someone eventually took notice of him.

The group would all leave their make-up on, because they were often photographed leaving Inkigayo, even though Jeongguk had no intention of using the usual exit. But he wanted to be out of the clothes he’d danced in, wanted to be in a fresh tee and a hoodie that he could bundle up in and sweatpants that didn’t cut into his waist like these pants did.

He was shunted in the general direction of the dressing room, unable to tell whether he was leading himself or just being nudged that way by the staff beside him. Jimin skipped up to his side and put his arms around him for a quick hug. ‘You really nailed the bridge, JK,’ he said. ‘I know you were tired.’

He nodded. The promotions were harder now than they once had been, like just a couple of years could make all the difference. It impressed him, when he thought about it, that his hyungs had fought through all of their choreographies for years with ever-heavier legs and slower recovery times. Jeongguk had always been the youngest, the fittest, and the way that this comeback had taken its toll on him was unfamiliar.

‘Do you want to come in the car with me?’ asked Jimin.

‘No, no,’ he said, ‘Jae booked a hotel.’

He said it casually, maybe a little too casually because not all of the staff knew yet, but he was too tired to try to be secretive today.

‘Nice,’ smirked Jimin, and Jeongguk rolled his eyes.

‘You know we might just sleep.’

‘_Might_,’ Jimin smiled.

In the dressing room, Jeongguk collapsed down into his seat immediately and unlaced his shoes. He kicked them off and closed his eyes, letting his head roll back. He wanted to move quicker, so that he could be in the car and then in the hotel and then in _his _arms, but his body didn’t seem to want to cooperate with his mind. The mention of sleep must have triggered his melatonin, because his mind started to drift in seconds.

He was snapped back to reality by familiar hands on his shoulders. He’d know them anywhere. They were bigger than his, but the fingers as fine, and the thumbs that pressed around his shoulder-blades were a familiar massage. He was very, very close to letting out an involuntary moan, so he forced his eyes open to remind himself of exactly where he was. He was going to have to make Jaehyun give him a massage later, in bed.

‘Congratulations on the win,’ said Jaehyun, with a sweet smile. His cheeks dimpled, eyes sparkling.

‘Congratulations on the comeback,’ answered Jeongguk, though his eyes were telling him something so different. _Take me home, take me home_, they said, because a hotel room was the closest thing that the two of them had to a home together.

Jaehyun let go of him too soon again, as he walked over to talk to Jimin and Hoseok, but it dragged Jeongguk from his idle state and pushed him into action. He pulled off his shirt, changed so quickly that he had to hop around behind the small screen because these pants were way too tight at the ankle. As he darted back out, he folded the stage clothes hurriedly over one arm because he never liked to return them to the stylists in a mess.

Jaehyun was still there, playing the good host, but he was also talking casually with Jeongguk’s manager.

They wouldn’t be able to travel together. Oh no. A discreet hotel and a discreet driver was not enough. _No_. They would have to arrive separately, some time apart. They’d had to book a second room under the name of Jeongguk’s manager, and Jaehyun’s under a false name. Jaehyun would be travelling in a different car to usual to ensure that his sites wouldn’t follow them.

Sometimes, Jeongguk wondered whether his management questioned if it was all worth it. They didn’t have a choice, really. After his previous contract negotiation, he had made it clear that he would be living his life how he wanted to live it, and that there was little anyone could do to stop him. The company took responsibility for the secrecy of it all, which spared him a job. He supposed it would cost them far too much money if they were to be exposed.

Once Jaehyun left, he watched the clock in the dressing room, waiting, waiting, waiting for when he would be told that he could leave too. Seconds ticked by, so insignificant to others but so significant to him. Other people didn’t _understand_, that when his time with his boyfriend was so limited, these seconds _meant _something. There were times when he would have given all of his fortune to have one more minute with Jaehyun.

‘Okay, JK?’ said his manager.

They were friendly with each other, casual enough to speak in such tones, having travelled together for a couple of years now, though the relationship was still entirely professional. Jeongguk often wondered what sort of briefing their personal managers were given, whether they were told to keep their distance emotionally, because there were members of the team that he would have liked to call friends that he knew would never say the same thing back. His life felt like one long extending of the arms, looking for people to clap his hand in comradery, give him a hug.

He’d learned a long time ago to accept that the only people who would truly embrace him like that were his brothers in the band, and his boyfriend.

In the car, he checked his phone.

There was a stream of messages from Jaehyun as always, telling him that he was waiting for him, telling him that they could order food, telling him that they could order _champagne_. He smiled and tapped out a reply. _Food: yes. Champagne: yes. You: yes._ First, though, he wanted a shower. He supposed that could include Jaehyun too.

*

His manager took him all the way up to the door, then handed him his bag. ‘Twelve hours,’ he said, with a strict but not unkind tone.

Jeongguk nodded with a smile. ‘Not a second over,’ he said, but he wasn’t famed for his timekeeping these days, especially when Jaehyun was involved, and even though their music show promotions were over, there was still a lot of work to do.

He checked both ends of the corridor before tapping on the door for Jaehyun to let him in. They were on the eleventh floor, a nice room but not one of the most expensive suites. That sort of thing drew unwanted attention.

The door opened barely a foot wide, and Jaehyun grabbed him by the sweater to pull him inside with a stifled laugh.

Jeongguk couldn’t stop his, because the laugh came out with a sigh of relief. He dropped his bag on the floor and let Jaehyun take him into his arms, picking him up just enough that his toes didn’t touch the floor for a second. Jaehyun was taller than him, and broader, which he’d always liked.

‘I thought you’d never get here,’ whispered Jaehyun, and he set Jeongguk back down, holding him at arm’s length so that he could take a better look at him. The lighting in the hall of the hotel room was not the best, but he still searched over every detail of his face. Jeongguk looked down, his heart beating faster than it had on the stage earlier, and then back up to meet his eyes.

Jaehyun’s eyes were dark, perfect almonds, still shadowed by his make-up from the show. He took Jeongguk’s face in his hands and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and for a second it felt like flying. Jeongguk felt his back hit the door, unaware that his legs had turned weak, and closed his fingers on the front of Jaehyun’s tee like that would tether him to the earth better than gravity. He gave into sensation, forget everything around them just for a second as he concentrated on the grazing touch of Jaehyun’s fingertips down his throat, the almost imperceptible nip of his teeth against his lower lip, and then they broke apart.

‘You felt so far from me, even just across that stage,’ Jeongguk whispered, aware that they were still right against the door. Anyone passing in the corridor might hear.

‘I thought about just snatching you away,’ sighed Jaehyun. ‘I thought we could drive off into the night together.’

‘One day.’ He smoothed out the shirt that he’d scrunched up. Then, he looked around the hall and stepped further into the space. ‘Did you check the room?’

‘My manager swept it once. Then I swept it again with my phone light.’

Jeongguk nodded and kicked his shoes off. Spy-cams were a daily threat, when he was alone _and _when he was with his boyfriend. But he trusted the two of them to have found anything untoward, so he didn’t hesitate again before pulling his hoodie over his head and discarding it on the bed.

The room was large enough, a wide king-size bed looking out on what would probably be a nice view but was hidden by the closed silver curtains. There was a table, where they would be able to eat some overpriced room-service, and a desk that they wouldn’t use because there was no time to waste on something so sterile as sitting and working.

‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you during that encore,’ murmured Jaehyun, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind a kissing his neck.

Jeongguk settled back into him and crossed his arms across himself to hold Jaehyun’s forearms like he could keep him there forever. He let his head fall back to his shoulder, posture slouching until their small difference in height was exaggerated so much more because he just wanted to be _held_. ‘I was tired,’ he said. ‘I think it showed.’

‘It never shows.’

Jeongguk had a million people telling him that he had done a good job every day, but it always felt different when Jaehyun said it. He ate up the praise like candy, even when it made his teeth sting with sweetness. He also had people who criticised him, every _damn _day, enough that he’d stopped checking the net after performances now. When he did see something, he texted Jaehyun then too, for reassurance, like his were the only words that could salve those wounds.

‘Do you mind if I take a shower?’ asked Jeongguk, conscious that he was still wearing the show’s sweat, even though he knew that Jaehyun wouldn’t really care.

Jaehyun smiled and released him, but not before he pressed one more kiss against his cheek. ‘The showers here are good. I’ve stayed in this hotel before.’

‘Not with your other secret boyfriend, I hope,’ he grinned, already taking off his shirt.

Jaehyun laughed and sat down on the bed to watch him, eyes on his body but then on his face, like he couldn’t decide which part to concentrate on.

When Jeongguk reached the door, loosening the band of his sweatpants, he turned back and gave him a smile that said he knew exactly what was going on in his mind. ‘You know you can come, if you want?’

Jaehyun was on his feet in a second, like he’d been waiting for the word before bolting, and he propelled him the rest of the way into the spacious bathroom. Jeongguk switched the water on to let it get hot as he finished undressing, and then he turned to pull Jaehyun’s shirt over his head for him, running his hands down over his bare skin just to remember that he was _real_.

‘You know, Jae,’ he said, running his hand through Jaehyun’s hair and feeling it stick slightly with the product. ‘I think this is going to be your best comeback.’

‘You say that every time,’ said Jaehyun as they stepped into the shower.

Jeongguk closed his eyes and exhaled the pent-up stress of the day as the hot water hit his back. His fingers were interlinked with Jaehyun’s, like holding hands was the most they would do in such an intimate space. ‘That’s because you’re better every time.’ He let the water run over his hair, shaking his head when it got into his eyes and blinking them back open to look at Jaehyun.

He looked unbelievable like this, water channelling down the grooves of his muscles, and Jeongguk felt the twitching of attraction in his navel, itching to be closer to him, to be so close that the space between them wouldn’t exist anymore.

‘Turn around,’ said Jaehyun, and Jeongguk did as he was told in a second, his breath coming quicker.

He thought, for a second, that they wouldn’t wait for the bed. With his eyes closed, again, skin lit up with the sensation from the over-stimulation of the power shower, he thought Jaehyun would fuck him right there. He even braced one hand to the wall, gulping down his excitement with the water that went past his parted lips.

Then, though, he sighed, because Jaehyun took hold of his shoulders again and began to work out the knots there. Jeongguk let out a low laugh, but he was tired enough that it didn’t take long to calm his own arousal. He arched his back like he might have done either way when Jaehyun dug in so hard at his shoulder that he felt something twist, and he let out a gasp, but then he relaxed, the soreness gone in a second along with the knot that had taken three weeks to build.

‘You okay?’ murmured Jaehyun.

‘Mmhm,’ he nodded, ‘I wanna get the rest of this crap out of my hair.’

Jaehyun switched off the water for a moment to find one of the bottles of shampoo in the shower. The hotel was expensive, which meant that the products were decent. ‘I’ll do yours, then you can do mine.’

After the weeks that Jeongguk had spent in the States, so far away that Jaehyun’s touch felt like a distant memory, and after the quick snatches of time together that they’d survived off for so long, this was as intimate a moment as he’d ever needed. If they did nothing but this for the time that they had together, he would be happy.

Jaehyun washed out the product in his hair slowly, massaging his temples, his scalp, even the back of his neck the way that Jeongguk’s trainer sometimes did for him after a workout. Sparks radiated from each point of contact, tingles running from his head all the way down his spine.

‘If you just did this for the next twelve hours, I wouldn’t mind,’ he breathed.

Jaehyun paused, and then rubbed gently over his temples again, the way he did when Jeongguk got migraines. ‘Is that how long we have?’

Jeongguk nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

Jaehyun shook his head. ‘It’s okay, I’m in the middle of a comeback too.’

There was an unspoken tension, sometimes, regarding Jeongguk’s rammed schedule. Their best time together had been the previous year, when he’d taken a couple of months off, but since then Jeongguk had always been working, always been travelling, always jetlagged on the few occasions that they were in the same city. When they’d started dating, Jeongguk had been glad that Jaehyun was an idol too, because it meant that he would understand, but even he knew that his schedule was beyond even the ordinary level of packed.

And now, with Jaehyun’s group returning to the stage so soon too, their time together would become even more scarce.

They stayed in the shower for so long that Jeongguk started to feel dizzy, the heat taking over his tired mind. It was Jaehyun who switched off the water and pushed open the door to encourage him out, and Jeongguk leant over the sink to let the unsettled feeling of overheating fade away. Jaehyun wrapped one of the fluffy white towels around him and held him there for a minute.

‘If you’re really tired, we should go to bed,’ said Jaehyun, stroking his wet hair.

‘I’m fine,’ he said quickly, not wanting to waste their precious time together on sleeping. He straightened up. ‘Totally fine.’

When they went back into the bedroom, Jeongguk watched the way Jaehyun’s back muscles moved in fluid lines down to the towel wrapped around his waist. He wished they could go to the gym together. It seemed stupid that there was something they both enjoyed so much, that they weren’t allowed to do together.

‘You’re staring at me,’ said Jaehyun without turning around.

‘I have to, I’ve only got twelve hours.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Thinking I wish we could work out together. That’s the sort of thing we could do, you know? If everyone knew about us. If we just walked out of this hotel together tomorrow.’

Jaehyun sat down on the bed, using a smaller towel to dry his hair, and he laughed like Jeongguk was joking. It sounded like he was joking. But he wasn’t. Not really.

‘Wouldn’t _that _give them something to talk about?’ he grinned.

Jeongguk swallowed and crossed to the curtains, opening them barely an inch so that he could peek out at the city before letting them fall shut again. ‘Sometimes I think it would be easier that way. I think the secret is harder than the truth.’

‘It could destroy both of our careers,’ said Jaehyun, and the _especially yours_ rang in the air unspoken, because Jeongguk knew that of the two of them, the cameras were on him the most. They’d discussed it once, in a moment like this when they’d been at their lucid, but the two of them had agreed that neither of them would wish to put their bandmates in that position. Their relationship was a choice they’d made, a risk they’d taken in the name of love, but it was just that: _their _choice.

The press would tear them apart. It would tear them apart if either of them were dating _anyone_, let alone each other.

‘Sometimes I think I don’t care,’ said Jeongguk. ‘I wonder if it’s all even worth it if I have to hide all the time. I have all this stuff, this success, but the one thing I want is you, and it’s like I’m only allowed one or the other. It’s killing me.’

‘Don’t talk like that…’ Jaehyun whispered, forehead creasing somewhere between pain and a frown. ‘Baby…’

He inhaled sharply and nodded. ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t come here for me to get all… _this_.’ He gestured at his face, like his getting upset was some sort of hindrance for the both of them and the perfect night they had planned.

Jaehyun stood up and took his hand again. He ran his thumb over Jeongguk’s tattooed knuckles, pausing on the J. He lifted his hand and kissed his fingers, his knuckles, then turned it over to kiss his palm.

‘It’s just getting _harder_,’ Jeongguk carried on, unable to stop the words. ‘I thought it would get easier. I thought we’d get used it. Instead it’s like we’re stretching this rubber band further and further and further and eventually it’s going to snap.’

Jaehyun took his arm and then cupped his cheek with his other hand, holding him steady. ‘You tell me, okay? You tell me if you’re ever going to snap. You tell me before you get there and I’ll take you away from all of this, I promise. Just tell me.’

‘Isn’t it this hard for you, too?’ he said, holding his eyes, and he didn’t mean for his tone to sound combative but it did. Maybe he was jealous, of the way that his boyfriend seemed to handle all this so much better than him.

Jaehyun looked like he’d been slapped, but he rearranged his face with remarkable speed. ‘JK, I - ’

‘I don’t understand how you can find it so _easy_,’ he said, and he was angry at himself, at his own weakness, not at Jaehyun, but it didn’t sound that way in his voice.

‘I don’t,’ answered Jaehyun, voice completely level but strain in his face as he slid his hand down to Jeongguk’s shoulder and held it there like he never wanted to let him go. ‘It’s this hard. It’s this hard every single day. But I have to hold it together because if I don’t then how can I expect you to?’

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Jeongguk, and his voice broke. ‘We didn’t book this room to fight.’

Jaehyun shook his head and held Jeongguk’s eyes every time that he looked away. ‘We’re not fighting. We’re talking. And it’s good. With the situation we’re in, we’d be insane not to be talking.’

As his heart started to thud faster, threatening to push him into a full -blown anxiety attack, Jeongguk swallowed and swallowed again and nodded, reminding himself to keep his eyes on Jaehyun’s too. ‘I just feel like… like I can’t breathe with the weight of everything that’s pressing down on me.’

‘With the pressure you’re under, baby, you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t feeling all of the that,’ said Jaehyun. ‘Let me take some of the weight off, let me bear some of it. I don’t want to be the one adding even more.’

Jeongguk leant forwards and rested his face in the crook of Jaehyun’s neck. ‘You’re the only person that makes me feel weightless,’ he whispered, breath on Jaehyun’s skin, and then he wrapped his arms around him because Jaehyun’s force upon him was stronger than gravity.

They stood there for a while, Jaehyun holding him, occasionally running his fingers through Jeongguk’s hair because it was starting to knot up as it dried.

‘I should get the last of this make-up off,’ Jeongguk mumbled after a minute, ‘or I’m gonna break out really bad.’

Jaehyun laughed and let him go.

In the bathroom, Jeongguk saw that his eyes were red, though he didn’t remember crying. _Great_, he thought, _the make-up artists are going to love that_. The thought of his puffy eyes tomorrow hung with him as he worked methodically through his skincare routine, the only think he’d packed alongside some clothes in his bag. ‘Jae? Do you have toner?’ he called out, because he couldn’t find his bottle.

Jaehyun appeared in the doorway, freshly dressed in grey sweats and a vest that hung low on his chest. He held out a bottle of expensive toner in frosted glass. If it was one thing that they shared, idol to idol, it was the way that the evening skincare routine was as integral to life as eating and sleeping. Never to be missed.

‘I didn’t do my stretching after getting off stage,’ he said, as he tapped in the borrowed toner and then pushed through his washbag with a clink of bottles. ‘My body’s gonna hate me tomorrow.’

‘At least you’re done with show promotions,’ said Jaehyun. ‘Your body’s allowed to hate you for a little while.’

‘Meanwhile you’re only just starting,’ he sighed.

He didn’t want to put any more product on his face when he knew that he’d probably sweat it out in five minutes in bed with Jaehyun, so he just brushed out his hair and pushed it back from his face, glad that it was still damp enough to set that way. Then he leant back against the sink and gave him a warm smile. The routine had relaxed him, settled the anxiety in his stomach back down to its usual low bubble rather than the risk of boiling over.

‘How do I look?’

‘Like the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,’ said Jaehyun, and his voice was entirely sincere.

‘Strong words,’ he said, though he knew his cheeks flushed a little, ‘we meet a lot of beautiful people.’

‘None of them look like you.’

He let himself live in the glow of those words for a moment, then followed Jaehyun back into the bedroom. He pulled on boxers and threw aside the towel, checking his phone once to make sure that there was no one who urgently needed his attention because he wasn’t planning on looking at it again for at least another ten hours. His inbox was full as ever, but the only message that he bothered to reply to was one from Jimin telling him to have fun.

After that, he switched off his phone and chucked it onto the desk. If anyone needed him in an emergency, they could call his manager, who would know where he was. Other than that, he did not want to be disturbed.

He stretched out, arms almost touching the light fitting, and cricked his neck to the left and right, glad to find that it was moving a little easier since Jaehyun’s massage. ‘Now you’re the one staring at me,’ he remarked when he felt the weight of Jaehyun’s eyes on him.

‘Thinking about how we should work out together,’ imitated Jaehyun, and Jeongguk turned with a roll of his eyes. Under his playfully stern gaze, Jaehyun shrugged. ‘I’ve heard a lot of good things about gym showers.’

‘Oh really?’ he grinned, crossing to the bed and pushing Jaehyun back with one finger against his chest. ‘Tell me about them.’

Jaehyun laid back, allowing Jeongguk to stretch over him. ‘I’ve heard they’re where people meet when they’re supposed to be keeping things secret…’

Jeongguk rested his hands either side of Jaehyun’s shoulders and then lowered himself down to kiss him, like a perfect push-up, because his upper arms barely even vibrated with the tension. When he pushed back up, he narrowed his eyes and sat back on Jaehyun’s thighs. ‘Tell me more.’

‘Oh you know how it is,’ he said like it was a throwaway comment. ‘When you’ve just pushed past the pain barrier and the adrenaline’s getting all confused with the endorphins. Everything feels multiplied and your skin’s on fire and you just feel all this stress and tension you’ve built up in your muscles and you just need to unleash it somehow…’

‘Oh I know,’ he smiled, biting his lip. ‘I’m pretty sure I woke up drenched in sweat and hard as fuck after this _exact _dream a couple of weeks ago.’

‘So you’ve thought about it?’ Jaehyun smirked.

Jeongguk shifted further up his body and rolled down his hips ever so slightly. ‘If you knew every fantasy I’ve had about you, Jae, then you never would have waited until we got out of the shower.’

Jaehyun laughed, but then he slid his hands up Jeongguk’s thighs and squeezed gently, stopping his moment for a second. ‘Much as I would really like to hear every single one of those thoughts inside your head in _itemised _detail… you just finished your last promotions.’

‘Mmhm,’ nodded Jeongguk, wondering why they had to take this momentary detour.

‘And you’re tired. And there’s this croak behind everything you’re saying because I know your voice is shot after all these weeks of promo. And you just showered and cleaned your face and switched off your phone…’

Jeongguk rested his hands on Jaehyun’s abs, knowing where this was going, and knowing in a second that he wasn’t going to argue because it might just be the only prospect that would excite him more than sex with his boyfriend.

‘… which means you are ready to relax… and do nothing at all… and let me take care of you.’

‘You really know how to turn me on,’ said Jeongguk with a small, tired smile, and then he swung his leg off him and laid down on his back beside him. Suddenly, now that Jaehyun’s voice had pulled him back to earth, he was aware of everything all over again. His throat _was _hurting, and his legs ached, and there was a pain behind his eye because he hadn’t been sleeping enough.

Jaehyun turned onto his side and kissed his ear, then his throat. ‘What could be more hot than doing _nothing_?’

‘Stop,’ he joked, ‘you’re gonna get me there too quickly.’

Jaehyun climbed off the bed and picked up the room service menu. ‘Right. What do you want to eat? Something big, because I know you and I know you probably haven’t been eating enough during promo. And I’m going to order a bottle of champagne, to celebrate you finishing and me starting.’

‘Get the most expensive bottle,’ Jeongguk yawned. He didn’t add _I’ll pay_, because that was an unspoken when it came to the very most extravagant things. In the last year, Jeongguk had grown used the trappings of outrageous success and learning to just spend when he wanted to was one of them. He’d already bought an apartment that he and Jaehyun would share one day, and a new car. A bottle of top-class champagne was nothing. ‘I’ll eat whatever you’re having.’

Jaehyun did the ordering, though they usually split these kinds of jobs because neither of them particularly liked talking to other people. That was something they had in common, this kind of inward shyness that didn’t show too much on the exterior. Jeongguk would have to hide anyway, he supposed, when the food came.

The champagne arrived first, but Jeongguk didn’t even move from the bed as Jaehyun went to fetch it. His boyfriend put on some music, the Bluetooth speakers making it feel like they were somewhere with much better acoustics. After a minute, because he couldn’t laze there forever, he sat up and picked up the hoodie Jaehyun had left thrown over one of the chairs and put that on.

It was soft and warm against the bare skin of his chest and back.

‘I said it at the show, and I’ll say it again,’ said Jaehyun as he passed him a glass, ‘congratulations on the win. And every other win. And everything you’ve achieved with this album because you deserve every piece of it. I’m so proud of you.’

‘Say it again,’ he said back when they clinked their glass together.

‘I’m so proud of you, Jeonggukkie.’

He sighed happily and drained the first glass before it even touched the sides. The burn of rapidly dissolving bubbles on his throat numbed the soreness. The second glass, he drank slower, concentrating on the taste this time because it really was an expensive bottle. ‘Vintage goes with steak,’ he defended, when the food arrived and he didn’t even set his glass aside.

Jaehyun ate too, but mainly Jeongguk knew he watched _him _eat.

‘You know, I mainly booked this hotel for this,’ Jaehyun said, as Jeongguk negotiated his way through the largest portion on the menu. ‘I wanted somewhere you could sleep, away from the distractions, away from your _games_.’

‘You’re a distraction, too,’ he remarked.

‘And I promise I will distract you all that you want after you’ve had a solid eight hours.’

There was a silence after that, but not an uncomfortable one. These days, Jeongguk didn’t feel the need to fill such silences because they were a moment of peace balanced somewhere small between their chaotic lives. They talked all the time in each other’s absence, exchanging hundreds of messages every day, so it only made sense that when they were together they enjoyed this quiet.

‘What you said earlier, about us driving off into the night…’ he said, after he’d finally finished. ‘Did you mean it?’

Jaehyun raised his eyebrows. ‘Did I mean that I would really pick you up and smuggle you away? Not so much. But hypothetically, yes. If you ever wanted to.’

Jeongguk smiled down at his plate. He would never want to leave this life that he’d created, this incredible everyday that he woke up to. He’d never trade the fans or his brothers for a little weight off his shoulders, not when the joy they brought him every single day far offset the weight. But it was nice sometimes to daydream about a different life nonetheless. He thought everyone in the world must do that sometimes. ‘I want you to move in with me, to the apartment I bought.’

Jaehyun laughed, and then set his face more level when he realised that Jeongguk wasn’t laughing too. He was serious. ‘JK… somehow I think our management might have a thing or two to say about that. It would be a somewhat difficult thing to keep secret.’

He shrugged. ‘So? That’s their problem. That’s why we _have _managers.’

‘So me being there with you? That’s your idea of us driving away into the night?’

He nodded.

‘Then we can ask,’ he said, ‘what’s the worst they can do? Say no?’

Jeongguk smiled. Even though it seemed too ridiculous of a fantasy to be allowed, he was going to enjoy living in it for the night. He yawned and stretched out, feeling the strain in his calves and his inner thighs that he’d known was coming because he hadn’t warmed down.

‘You ready to sleep?’ asked Jaehyun.

Jeongguk checked the watch he wasn’t wearing and sighed. ‘Eight hours is _really _going to eat into our time together.’

‘It’s okay, we’ll have time for other stuff when we wake up,’ shrugged Jaehyun.

It was true. If it was one thing Jeongguk had learned from a relationship built on stolen moments and fumbled kisses in unlocked dressing rooms and illicit trysts on a ferocious time schedule, it was that his boyfriend could do a _lot _in five minutes.

When he settled down into the bed, the sheets felt as good as silk on his skin. The bed was larger than his one at the dorm, and even when Jaehyun climbed in beside him, he felt like he could stretch out more than ever. He flung one arm across Jaehyun’s waist and then curled up against him, making himself so small that it was barely like his own body at all. He rested his cheek on Jaehyun’s chest and then shifted sideways so that he could feel his heartbeat. 

It was a reminder that he was really _there_, even if only for tonight.

There was nothing that could imitate that feeling when they were apart.

‘Do you think anyone suspected something? At the show?’ Jeongguk whispered when he switched off the light.

‘Not in the slightest.’

Sometimes Jeongguk wished that they would.

Jaehyun’s breath was quiet, but in the silent room it was enough for Jeongguk to sink into. He fell into its rhythm, like a beautiful melody. It was the song that he wanted to sing every night for the rest of his life.

‘I love you,’ he said.

Jaehyun stroked his hair, then wrapped his arm around his shoulders to hold him close. ‘I love you too.’

It felt as full of meaning as the very first time they’d said it.

Eight hours was a lot of time to waste when his time with Jaehyun was so limited, but Jeongguk felt himself starting to drift after barely minutes. He was still with Jaehyun, after all, even if they were both sleeping. He hoped that they’d wander into each other’s dreams, just to make the very most of the minutes.

Just like dreams, their time together always seemed to be gone in the blink of an eye.


End file.
